Laurie Pace - Fine Artist

Crab Apple Tree in Bloom 15 x 30 inches  Oil on Canvas      SOLD  © Laurie Pace   Graphics One Design 1998-2011 Contact me for Commission work: Laurie Keeping Time We were out late last night enjoying the sliver of golden moon and the brilliant stars lighting up the heavens. JR and Kelly had a group of us over for hamburgers, wine and dancing. JR used to teach country and western dancing and there were many of us not doing it right and we wanted to learn.  They have a huge back concreted area with an entertainment cooking area, and a fire pit.  The temps began to drop about 7 but JR built up a huge toasty fire in the firepit and we gathered with four other families and the children in fellowship eating and enjoying the beauty of the clear night.   We spent about an hour or two dancing the two step to 3/4 time and to 4/4 time.  We learned how to do the fancy twirling and laughed and enjoyed ourselves.  Believe me it will take quite a bit more practice, but I am hoping to cl

Commission Painting SOLD Four Crossing 28 x 42 inches Oil on Canvas © Laurie Pace   Graphics One Design 1998-2011      HEALING GRACE Annie is home. She is sleeping right behind my chair. She did not want to get up again this morning...but she is eating and moving so much better than two days ago.  We do not return to the vet until Monday to have her bandages changed out. PRAISE GOD! We are praying she will be with us another year or two before she head across the rainbow bridge.  She loves it here in the country and loves being outside.  She had been staying with Morgan, our youngest son in the city and we brought her back with us last week for the first time to our new place. She is happy to be home with Paddy. The Lord offers up healing grace as a gift to all of us.  As we all know we are not always healed in this lifetime but we are whole and healed as we continue into His presence.  Healing can be offered physically or spiritually. Humans tend to bottle up and hide their

Progression on Four Crossing 28 by 42 inches  Oil on Canvas   SOLD COMMISSION Painting © Laurie Pace    Graphics One Design 1998-2011        MISSING YOU I missed blogging yesterday. Entirely too much going on with Annie Dog. As I write she is sleeping at my feet. She does not want to even stand on her leg and the sparkle is not in her eyes. She does not respond to the parakeets, her favorite friends in the house... they tweet and sing for her and she cannot seem to hear them. We did get some cheese down her and some apple along with some chicken and brown rice that I cooked up. The took blood late yesterday and we take her back in for more results today, and more IV. Missing you... I am missing my spirit Kerrie Blue Terrier.  My life has had her in my studio for over 10 years now and I cannot imagine not having her sparkle back at me. God is at work always in our lives and if it is truly Annie's time to cross over the rainbow bridge, Terry and I have to love her enough t

Progression on Four Crossing 28 x 42 inches Oil on Canvas Commissioned Painting SOLD     Contact me for you own Painted Pony! Laurie © Laurie Pace     Graphics One Design 1998-2011  MOVING ON In this family the MOVE word is not allowed. We have moved way too many times. The longest we lived anywhere was in Justin TX for 6 1/2 years. Three years is about the average...but we have lived here on the lake almost one year and I still love it as much as the day we moved in here last April 5th. Moving on leaves your mind wide open to new things. Unless you are the empty glass person and moving on is sadness. It is leaving the comfortable and the expected for the new and the unexpected.  I choose these words today as we will be picking Annie up from the vet this afternoon. They amputated part of her right paw and then removed another cancerous lesion on her leg further up.  Had we known it was all cancer we might have chosen to put her down now, but we didn't and we had made ou

MARCO POLO Lily 18 x 24 inches  Acrylic on Canvas SOLD         Contact me for your own painting. Laurie © Laurie Pace  Graphics One Design 2011  WALKING IN FAITH Many things pop up unexpectedly in life. This morning we are taking our Annie Dog to the vet for surgery. She was diagnosed with cancer of the bone in her paw. We know they will amputate part of her paw but until they go in they do not know how much or how bad the situation is. Annie was born in 1999, the same year we bought Terry's truck. She did not arrive in our family until 2001.  We say we rescued her because the home that was GIVING her away was not the best home. Sure it was in the expensive million dollar homes in Dallas, but inside that home was a very unhealthy environment of anger between the family members. The mother sobbed uncontrollably as we took Annie away to come to our house.  The boys and father sort of snickered at us when we pulled out of the driveway.  She was a beautiful 2 year old Kerrie

A Walk at Sunrise in His Garden 3 ft by 4 ft  Oil on Canvas      SOLD commissinon Painting   Contact me for your own painting. Laurie  © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 WHY DOES GOD TAKE THOSE WE LOVE from us in this life? Finishing this painting this week has been very emotional for me. It is close to its finish, enough to be posted.  Touch ups follow next week and then varnishing. If you have followed the story of this repaint of In His Garden, you know from my blog that at this time last year a young woman was battling for her life against cancer. She had been diagnosed on February 19, 2010 and the cancer took her life less than 90 days later. The odd part of this journey is her husband and I share the same birth date and we are the same age, born only hours apart; he in Michigan and I in St. Louis. Tom is not a computer person. He does not do the internet. As he wife died, many emotions were crashing in on him and the memory of the original painting ha

Riot in Spring 7.5 x 5.5 inches Oil on 300 lb Watercolor Paper          BID HERE. Contact me. Laurie  © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 CONTAGIOUS   What in your life is contagious? Well my daughter and her family has dreadful colds.  We are suppose to go visit but are double thinking that right now.  Colds are very contagious... and if I am going to catch something I would rather have it be a smile, a hug or even some laughter. Sharing love and kindness comes naturally for some people. Smiling at a stranger on the street or in a store, helping an elderly friend with their yard work, or hugging a child that just took a spill on their bicycle... all of it is a contagious sharing of joy.  Each of us has been blessed with abundance in our lives.  Sometimes we have to stop our negativity and count those gifts, but they are there.  In addition, we receive back from others in same when a thank you note arrives for the supper you took to a sick friend or for ret

Urgency       30 x 40 inches Oil on Canvas         Contact me for your own painting. Laurie  © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 CLOSE YOUR EYES Yesterday I wrote about courage... and this morning I revisit it slightly...close your eyes in an instant around here and things change. With courage, I scraped the painting I posted yesterday... It was tooo...tooo... whatever, but it was not there. BUT I had to go there before I could get here.  These are the paintings that seem to do the best in the galleries...the transformed paintings that were scraped.   I literally close my eyes and scrape the paint.   Last year I had a large one about this size that was tooo tooo... and it was scraped. It had so much paint on it I had to pull it off onto a palette.  I reused EVERY single bit of paint making three paintings out of one. Two of the three sold at Mirada this past year and the last one should sell by summer this year. Again I think about life and how sometimes we

The Majesty Three 30 x 40 inches  Oil on Canvas       © Laurie Pace  Graphics One Design 1998-2011 Contact me to purchase: Laurie COURAGE ...dare to step out and confront the unknown.    I cannot decide if I like adding the darker values that went into the painting yesterday or not. When you paint you must not be faint of heart. It is from the stepping up on the ladder that you begin to realize what is outside of the box.  Usually when I get to this point I scrape the painting and that may happen by tomorrow...I am still deciding if I like it or not. It takes courage to paint and not be in control. It takes courage to get out of bed every morning.  It takes courage when you loose a loved one of any age. We have buried parents, good friends and a grandchild that was only 11. Last week was the four year anniversary of our eldest grandson's death and it still takes courage and strength of heart to wake up and realize he is gone.  It takes courage to battle an illness. It t

Reunion 3 ft by 4 ft  Oil on Canvas   sold     Contact me for your own painting. Laurie    © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 SHHH  Spring is here . This week we have been able to get outside and begin cleaning up all the leaves that fell. Last week we were raking and burning but it was warm enough for me to climb on the Cubbie and mulch them instead of burning them.  If you think about our daily experiences... and how seasons change even in our lives, we probably need to do clean up in our lives as well. We cannot be as drastic as burning leaves...but we could mulch things around. Terry made sure I was safety equipped with my ear protection and my safety glasses. I should have worn a work handkerchief over my face because there was a lot of dust. Late yesterday we planted some tulips, little blue iris and yellow daffodils. I will try and take some pictures today.  We took a walk before the sunset last night and I never got in fast enough to retrieve the

Progression on Three Horses 30 x 40 inches  Oil on Canvas For my show in Denver this summer.       Contact me for your own painting. Laurie   © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 FREEDOM to grow. When I begin a painting like this, it often does not look ANYTHING like it starts. So this  may be a ride for all of us. Pardon the pun.  I have this vision in my head and I truly do not know what direction I will take this painting. We each have the freedom to grow. Every painting I do has a type of freedom as well. We never turn out like our parents think we will and often we have no clue what is ahead in life. Often we bumble our way through life going up and down and not really living or enjoying life. That is definitely true often with art. It is truly a blessing to know that life is ever changing; my painting is ever changing.  Both have the possibility to change and grow in almost any given direction.  There truly are no limitations other than those we place

Red Ribbon Lacing 20 x 30 inches  Mixed Media on Canvas Still in progress I think. I keep working on it and stepping back and working on it more. It reminds me of my niece.       Contact me if you are interested in Red Ribbon Lacing. Laurie   © Laurie Justus Pace     Graphics One Design 2011 On the way to church yesterday we were hurtling down the back country roads viewing land around us still void of leaves with spring just beginning to arrive.  I noticed a house off to my right I had never seen before.  It was built facing to the sides so the front and back were not in view of the road. I could see a nice pond in the back and the house was high up from the pond with a beautiful deck. There were stairs down to the pond... LOTS of stairs.  The house was immaculate and so beautiful nestled in the cove of trees about 300 yards off the road in a slight valley.  Wonder who lives there? We turned onto Hwy 115 and there was a quaint soft blue frame house off to the left. It w